The calculated hiatus can nourish a leader and provide a waiting room to equip us for the next creative season.
Regardless of how you define a centered state, intentional stillness commemorates what’s been accomplished, keeps us in the moment, and adds fresh perspective on what needs to come next. This form of hibernating can also refocus a team or provide space for an entire community to recharge.
When a sense a flow is felt, time away can feel like a waste of time. When a light hibernation is thoughtful, benefits outweigh the time away. If a hiatus is only an excuse to avoid the work, then, yes, worthless wandering is a trap. It can actually devolve into a dangerous habit and can easily become an excuse that feels like self-care but stifles progress, which leads to more pain. Unless it’s time to quit, even a short hiatus should be used to rejuvenate your return.
What about an extended hiatus? This could be time away, setting a project aside, or even taking breaks in a relationship. When things get tough or positive momentum starts to fade, it’s tempting to avoid reality by pushing pause. This may keep things afloat, but it’s often a lackadaisical move to avoid reality, which may include the challenges of calling it quits.
If an extended hiatus is truly strategic, the time should feel restful and build confidence as rearranged resources add renewed motivation. If this time is wasted, a false restart can be hard to recover from and will further expose what always needed to change. If a hiatus is an excuse to dodge blame, instead of being fainthearted, perhaps the illusion of an endless break should be replaced with a more disciplined effort to make the bigger decision.
The length of any hiatus is relevant and so are the people you spend time with during a break. Lone wolves can make their own decision without dissent, but without feedback from customers, mentors, and fellow community members, solopreneurs may not see the bigger picture.
When more contributors are impacted, a hiatus becomes complex. If only a few people decide on behalf of many, it’s easy for the decision to be rooted in that gang’s own situation. The more stakeholders, the more thoughtful this needs to be to ensure your well-being and what’s best for everyone.
When leaders feel significant, promises are kept and more people are set free to lead.
As we lead together, limitations of some won’t compromise the prosperity of many. This agency supports creativity, enrollment, and honesty between leaders who collectively decide when a healthy hiatus will be most invigorating now, and also stretch long-term endurance down the road.
Brewed From Within
#66 📖 Leadership
